Intervention de M. Ole Birk Laursen : « Indian anticolonialists, French socialists and Russian revolutionaries in Paris, 1907 – 1917 »

Le Centre d’Histoire de l’Asie contemporaine (CHAC) de l’Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne accueillera le mardi 18 juin 2019 M. Ole Birk Laursen (NYU, Londres), directeur d’études associé de la FMSH pour les mois de juin et de juillet.

Il interviendra sur le thème suivant : « Indian anticolonialists, French socialists and Russian revolutionaries in Paris, 1907 – 1917 ».

In September 1912, the famous Russian author Maxim Gorky (1868–1936), then living in exile on the island of Capri (1906 to 1913), wrote to the Paris-based Indian anticolonial nationalist Bhikaiji Rustom Cama (1861–1936) and asked her to write an article on Indian women and their role in the Indian freedom struggle. Whether Cama actually did so is uncertain, but Gorky’s request is evidence of Cama’s status as an internationally known Indian revolutionary woman. Their correspondence in the autumn of 1912, and that between Gorky and Cama’s fellow Indian nationalist, Shyamaji Krishnavarma (1857–1930), had been facilitated through a mutual friend, Mikhail Pavlovich (Mikhail Lazarevich Vel’tman, 1871–1927), who associated closely with the Indian nationalists in Paris during his time there from 1907 to 1917. The correspondence between Cama, Pavlovich, and Gorky highlights a number of interrelated issues: first, it reveals Cama’s central role among Indian and anticolonial nationalists from across the world in early twentieth-century Paris; second, the inspiration from the Russian Revolution of 1905 and alliances between exiled Indian and Russian revolutionaries in Paris; and third, with Gorky’s request in mind, the role of women in revolutionary movements.

In this paper, I draw on intelligence reports and archival material from across Britain, France, the United States, and India, as well as newspaper reports and private papers to examine these interrelated issues much closer. In the first part, after a short biographical introduction, I will explore Cama’s activities within anticolonial, feminist, and socialist circles in Paris and then, in the second part, I will move on to examine the inspiration from Russian revolutionaries on her anticolonial activities, including the advocacy of terrorism in response to what she called ‘Russian methods’, her alliances with Russian revolutionaries such as Pavlovich and Ilya Rubanovich (1859–1920), her correspondence with Gorky, and ultimately what we might call inter-revolutionary anticolonialism. As a supplementary argument, I suggest that Cama’s friendship with such Russian revolutionaries, as well as French socialists such as Jean Jaurès (1859–1914) and Jean Longuet (1876–1938), paved the way for the turn to communism for many Indian nationalists after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Pour plus d’informations : christina.wu@univ-paris1.fr.